fabian

[dev log] A Wish Upon A Star

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The game is now released! You can find it here: https://fabiandenter.itch.io/wish-upon-a-star

Hope you enjoy and have fun! :) 

 

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Original Post:

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Hi, thanks for checking out my devlog! 

 

What I want to do:

For this jam, I‘m trying to do a puzzle game with a few simple mechanics. It will mainly be „getting from point A to point B while overcoming an obstacle“, though I hope it will turn out more interesting than this description sounds! 

I’ve already got a few mechanics in my head, most of them are moving blocks around in order to create a way for the player character. For this to work, I‘ll need to look up Unity‘s navmesh, but folks in the slack already told me it‘s easy to work with, so I‘m optimistic. It definitely needs to be somewhat dynamic in that it regenerates itself after each action, I hope this is possible. This also means the movement will be point and click, which is something I wanted to do for a long time now. The levels themselves will be quite short and isolated and while I type this I‘m just realizing that I‘m describing Monument Valley without the perspective stuff. So that‘s my new theme prompt now 😄

 

Goals:

- have a dynamic navmesh with point & click movement for the player

- have multiple simple mechanics that allow the player to alter the path that needs to be taken to overcome an obstacle

- have at least 10 small, isolated levels that contain one puzzle each

- code everything gameplay-related myself/ without third-party assets/ of course with the help of Google and other people

- make a simple character with an interesting shape

- do gameplay first, add bells & whistles later

 

All goals might be slightly adjusted depending on how everything goes. 😄

 

Good luck everyone!

Edited by fabian
The game was released!

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Sounds interesting! Curious to see this character with an "interesting shape". 

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Regarding Nav Mesh, I don't think  you can do real time recalculation. I believe you have to "bake in" static world objects into the Nav Mesh, and it is more or less locked at runtime.

 

BUT, you can always fake it by having your "click to path" system decide what areas are considered free from obstacles, and if free, tell the Nav Mesh to select a point closest to clicked position. And the Nav Mesh can just hold "all possible navigable space" in the static world, and your obstacles can be dynamic and prevent player from selecting that otherwise "free" space. I hope that made sense. :)

 

Looking forward to this. Judging by your previous entries, even a half-decent version of Fabian brand bells and whistles will turn out lovely :tup:

 

 

 

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12 hours ago, Travis said:

Sounds interesting! Curious to see this character with an "interesting shape". 

Haha, yeah me too! I haven‘t gotten to sketching some ideas, but I want to avoid the rather normal/realistic human shapes and proportions that I did last jam. Though the character will be very small in the camera view, so maybe I shouldn‘t focus on it that much. I played Far: Lone Sails recently and they did a very good job with a quite simple character, so I hope I can do something along those lines.

 

7 hours ago, brendonsmall said:

Regarding Nav Mesh, I don't think  you can do real time recalculation. I believe you have to "bake in" static world objects into the Nav Mesh, and it is more or less locked at runtime.

Hmm, if that won‘t work I guess I need to re-think the whole idea, because the mechanics I have in mind would depend on it. 

 

Tomorrow I‘ll finally start working and begin with the whole navmesh topic. Fingers crossed it will work, somehow! 😄

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Today I worked a lot on my camera system. Thanks to being pointed at the free Unity asset Dotween by @phill I was able to make a system working almost exactly as I wanted. I decided to make the whole thing orthographic and turn the camera in 90-degree steps, I think this limitation could be interesting when I get to design the puzzles.

Originally I wanted to have a normal perspective camera with free orbiting- and zoom-capabilities, but after prototyping that I found it to feel weird and floaty and generally uninteresting, so I came up with this more stylized solution. I also implemented two camera-"modes". One focuses on the puzzle itself and the other one follows the player character. Thanks to Cinemachine they also blend nicely when I switch from one to the other.

 

Here's the current state of the camera system in action:

giphy.gif

 

I'm quite happy with today's progress. Tomorrow I'll look into more advanced navmesh-stuff. I got the basic functionality working, so my character moves, but I need to find a way to make it somehow dynamic.

 

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This looks lovely so far, reminds me a lot of the simplistic art style of Tokyo 42 (which also had a flip-able camera)!

image.jpeg.ea4baef3477d676d6bf1154a857c01e6.jpeg

 

Regarding dynamic nav meshes you can fake it with obstacles pretty well you might be able to just stick a big invisible object over the platforms that the player can't reach (not really sure on how you're want to do movement mind). Here's quick video on the subject, and the next one covers linking nav meshes which can be used for jumping between them, if that's in anyway helpful for what you want to do. :D

 

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Well I loved Monument Valley so I'll be looking forward to this! Also you used the same episode title as I did, so I am automatically interested in how your game shapes up.

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On 6/10/2018 at 1:50 AM, Mythalore said:

This looks lovely so far, reminds me a lot of the simplistic art style of Tokyo 42 (which also had a flip-able camera)!

image.jpeg.ea4baef3477d676d6bf1154a857c01e6.jpeg

 

 

 

That looks incredible! Haven't heard about this game before.

 

On 6/10/2018 at 1:59 AM, eRonin said:

Well I loved Monument Valley so I'll be looking forward to this! Also you used the same episode title as I did, so I am automatically interested in how your game shapes up.

Yeah, I'm having my eyes on your thread as well :D 

 

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So yesterday I figured out the whole dynamic navmesh problem and it now regenerates after each change made by the player. I also worked on the actual movement of the platforms, they're not popping into their new position anymore, but instead move there smoothly. I added another game mechanic as well that already makes things a little bit more complicated. Here's the current state:

giphy.gif

(the yellow circle around the cursor is from my screen capture program ;) )

 

The idea behind this mechanic is pretty clear I think. There are two connected platforms that move in opposite directions. I only need to find a way to connect those connected platforms visually. Currently, it seems a bit random.

 

But right now I'm taking a break from game mechanics and will explore a layer of narrative and the overall aesthetics of the game. I like the simplistic style of the gif above and if nothing else works it'll be a nice "fallback"-style, but I want to try a few things. :) 

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Maaaan, I'm a sucker for isometric graphics and 90 degree camera turns. Seems promising, above gif already looks fun!

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fabian, this looks really pretty already. I like the simplicity of the style, and I'm excited to see your twist on the genre. 

 

(That red-background image definitely looks like a fat hand holding onto a red bar. I kept waiting for you to reveal you were clicking around to make the hand flip the bird. )

 

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16 hours ago, fabian said:

 

giphy.gif

 

 

Love this. :tup: 

Currently reminds me a little of a game I played for IGF called No Place. Excited to see where you go with it :) 

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As usual your game is looking like I'll be shaking my head as I stream it wondering how you got all of it done in 2 weeks. Can't wait to see how it progresses!

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16 hours ago, pdotjpg said:

Maaaan, I'm a sucker for isometric graphics and 90 degree camera turns. Seems promising, above gif already looks fun!

Thanks! Yeah I like the 90 degree turns as well :)

 

13 hours ago, RubixsQube said:

fabian, this looks really pretty already. I like the simplicity of the style, and I'm excited to see your twist on the genre. 

 

(That red-background image definitely looks like a fat hand holding onto a red bar. I kept waiting for you to reveal you were clicking around to make the hand flip the bird. )

 

Oh god, you are right! Wouldn't giant hands holding a sausage be a nice spin on the narrative? :D

 

3 hours ago, zerofiftyone said:

 

Love this. :tup: 

Currently reminds me a little of a game I played for IGF called No Place. Excited to see where you go with it :) 

Thanks, wow that game looks very intriguing! 

I think I will do a bit of work on the visuals. I like them currently, but I'm not sure if I want to go further into that Monument Valley aesthetic. I love it, but it also feels like reproduction sometimes. I already have an idea which also involves a tiny narrative, so I'll see where I get with this :)

 

1 hour ago, phill said:

As usual your game is looking like I'll be shaking my head as I stream it wondering how you got all of it done in 2 weeks. Can't wait to see how it progresses!

Thx! Having two weeks off from work sure helps :D 

 

===

 

Yesterday I made a new mechanic where a platform is not walkable until it is exposed to a "laser". Later I want to add 90-degree rotation to platforms as well, so the laser can be raised and turned. I think I can re-use the code of my camera script for that.

I'm also rewriting my platform-raising scripts to work with DOTween, so the platforms will have eased movements, which in my opinion feels much better :)

Here's a gif of the laser mechanic:

https://i.imgur.com/6IZ6JGu.gifv

 

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giphy.gif

 

Worked a bit on the visuals and small narrative elements :)

I still need to add some sort of feedback for the player when they can't move a platform because it reached its highest or lowest allowed position. Maybe a small animation like that little bounce when you move the platforms.

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13 hours ago, fabian said:

I still need to add some sort of feedback for the player when they can't move a platform because it reached its highest or lowest allowed position. Maybe a small animation like that little bounce when you move the platforms.

 

Some small "rubber banding" movement with some subtle audio/visual indicator might work for that I reckon

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22 hours ago, brendonsmall said:

 

Some small "rubber banding" movement with some subtle audio/visual indicator might work for that I reckon

Yup did something like that :)

 

---

 

giphy.gif

 

Today I spent the whole day with modeling, rigging and animating. I have a few characters but they mostly use one rig, so it was a lot of weight painting... which is an activity I came to loathe. Also, my animation-to-Unity workflow isn't really ideal, because there are always bones not correctly assigned or they import with weird rotations that are hard to fix inside Unity. However, I did fix my run animation to a point where I'm very happy and it comes close to what I originally authored, but maybe I should not depend on Cinema 4D too much in the future and learn a more established game dev 3D software? I don't know.. -_- 

 

Nevertheless, I'm very happy with how the little guy is running from A to B, always fun to make things actually move! :)

 

https://i.imgur.com/Ixr1QTS.gifv

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Today I worked on another puzzle mechanic. It's rather simple because it's just a rotating object, but I hope that in combination with the other mechanics, it will be at least a tiny bit challenging.

I somehow managed to fix the animation problem, too. I don't exactly know how, but my character imports fine now :)

 

There is one last mechanic that I want to get in there before I start building the levels. It's still a lot of time, but for now, I'll focus on getting a small number of levels done and will implement anything story-related if time allows at the end.

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This is looking jaw droppingly amazing.

 

I really hope I'm not coming off too forward but god, as a unity noob, what I wouldn't give for a tutorial or a chance to dig around this unity project.

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On 6/17/2018 at 4:57 AM, FartSatchel said:

This is looking jaw droppingly amazing.

 

I really hope I'm not coming off too forward but god, as a unity noob, what I wouldn't give for a tutorial or a chance to dig around this unity project.

Haha thanks :) 

Well, I'm probably not going to put the project online, but I can go into more detail on specific things if you want, just ask what is the most interesting to you! Though I'm not sure if I'm a great learning source as I feel like a Unity noob myself all the time :D 

 

----

 

Quick update: Yesterday I made the last game mechanic I wanted to implement which means I can create a game around them now. So this is exactly what I'm trying to do next! 

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2 hours ago, fabian said:

Haha thanks :) 

Well, I'm probably not going to put the project online, but I can go into more detail on specific things if you want, just ask what is the most interesting to you! Though I'm not sure if I'm a great learning source as I feel like a Unity noob myself all the time :D 

 

 

I've never done 3D so these questions may be dumb, but how did you do the shading, lighting, and materials for the surfaces? Each face facing the same direction has a unified color no matter the height in a way that doesn't look like it's just directional lights. Each face facing a different direction also have a different color. Is that just the effect of the same lighting from a different angle on a different color? Also the surfaces have that slightly acid washed glass look sorta like Besieged's ground. What materials did you use?

 

Sorry to ask so many questions but I've been wanting to try 3D stuff for a while now but have no idea where to start.

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